She nodded despairingly. "He never hurt me, always overpaid, even waited for me those times when I thought he was done with me. Never asked for anything spazzed."
Contemplating the bright blue whorls that spattered her lower body and turned both supple legs into kaleidoscopic echoes of ancient barber poles, only in color, Cardenas wondered what someone like Coy Joy would consider abnormal.
"He was- He said that as soon as this big project he was working on gealed, he would leave the woman he was living with and we would get married. He talked a lot about us moving, about getting away from the Strip."
What a charming homber the dead Brummel had been, the Inspector mused. Surtsey Mockerkin had chosen to run off with a man who had promptly begun their new life by cheating on her. Suggestions of domestic abuse from the subgrub Wild Whoh notwithstanding, it was looking more and more like Ms. Mockerkin and the late Brummel-Anderson probably deserved one another. Cardenas did not need to draw his spinner to record the conversation. Anything relevant he committed to his own, as opposed to an artificial, memory.
"Move where?"
"I don't know-some place he called Friendship."
Cardenas shook his head. "Never heard of it."
"Neither had I. And he wouldn't ever tell me any more than the name." As she struggled to smile, her upper body, from shoulders to forehead, pulsed a pale rose hue. "Wanted it to be a surprise, he said."
The tears and tints began to flow again. Cardenas let them come, admiring the startling play of colors within her skin, before putting an end to the weepery with another question.
"What about this business of his, his big project? Did he ever talk about it, ever mention the names of partners or existing concerns?"
Reaching down, she picked up a beach towel and used it to wipe her eyes and nose. Behind her, the simulated sea washed the synthetic shore, suffusing the apartmento with the artificial scent of marooned kelp and crystallizing sea salt.
"Wayne never said anything about partners. I guess maybe he didn't need any, because he had access to the money of this other woman, the woman he was living with. Apparently she had plenty. I didn't worry about him, about us, taking it for our own use, because he told me she had stolen it from her husband."
Cardenas was watching her closely. "Did Wayne ever mention the husband?"
Coy shook her head. "No, never. Just a daughter, the girl he and the woman were living with. Wayne talked about her a lot. I guess he thought she was kind of special, even though she wasn't his."
"He didn't talk about the woman?" Cardenas was puzzled.
"No, not the woman. He never talked about her, unless it had to do with the money he was going to take. Just about the girl. Katey- no, Katla, that was her name. The special project? He was never real clear on that. Said something, once, about wanting to keep me under a shield of ignorance. It all centered around the girl." She shook her head. "Don't ask me why."
Cardenas was now as intrigued as he was confused. "Brummel's big business deal revolved around Katla? Katla, the twelve-year-old, and not Surtsey?" He saw neither need nor reason for now to bring up the name Mockerkin.
She shrugged. "That's what Wayne told me. Hey, I didn't press him for details. It was enough that he said we were going to get married and go to this place of friendship. Or Friendship place. He'd get real dreamy-eyed talking about it. Said it was warm, and beautiful, and private. Just wouldn't tell me where it was."
"What kind of unusual business could someone like Wayne be working with a twelve-year-old girl?"
Rising, Coy Joy apathetically began to slip into a new dress. Her body was a symphony of sinuous movement and subdued, internally generated color. Cardenas's blood pressure had finally diminished to something approaching normal.
"I dunno." She raised one leg engagingly, using both hands to smooth the diaphanous material against her skin. The mood music that had been playing continuously in the background had, mercifully, finally stopped. "He said she was a tecant, but he didn't go into details. Said she had done a lot of work for her father."
So shy little Katla Mockerkin was a technology savant, Cardenas mused. One who had been working with her father, The Mock. While the nature of that labor remained a mystery, Cardenas began to understand why Cleator Mockerkin might be anxious to regain custody of his hijacked offspring. Irregardless of the nature of that work, it was manifestly one that had caught the interest of Wayne Brummel. The abilities of a natural tecant could be extremely valuable to someone involved in complex business dealings. With tecants, as for example with intuits, age was not necessarily a limiting factor where natural ability was concerned.
"He didn't discuss the character of the business at all?"
"I told you." Reflecting her annoyance as she fastened the dress, angry red stars appeared as blotches on the still-exposed portions of her body. "He didn't go into detail with me about anything except the two of us, our relationship, and this Friendship place. He never talked business beyond what I've already told you." She rested her face in her hands. "I didn't want him to talk about anything except us." Taking a deep breath, she composed herself as best she was able. Except for occasional flare-ups of blue and gold, her skin color had returned to normal.
"That's gone, now. All gone. Him and us, Friendship; everything." She glanced in the direction of an artfully concealed chrono.
"You've still got time left that you paid for. You sure you don't want to…?"
Her words as she spoke them to him now were as hard, as cold and drained of emotion, as any Cardenas had ever encountered. Even if he were inclined to pursue some nonpolice activity with her, her tone would have killed any interest he might have had.
"No." His reply was full of empathy as he rose from the sand. "You've done everything I've asked of you."
Beneath the form-fitting material of the dress, her lethargic shrug was barely perceptible. "I've told you everything I can remember. There isn't anything more. Now there never will be." Lower lip quivering, she tried very hard to smile. "If you really don't want me for anything else, I could really use the next hour to myself."
"Why don't you just quit for the night?"
Her response was more of a twitch than a laugh. "Yeah, right," she replied tartly. "I'll just go up to whoever's running the front desk now and turn in my timer for the rest of the evening."
"I can get you off." The Inspector uttered the claim with quiet confidence.
"Why bother?" Her tone was brittle as she headed for the door that led to the bathroom. "I'm already coged." Whether from indifference, numbness, or house rules, she did not bother to close the door behind her.
On his way out, Cardenas made sure to strew compliments in his wake. It was all he could do to help her, since she would not let him arrange for her to take the rest of the night off. No one accosted him as he stepped outside the entry to the Cocktale and started up the street in the direction of the tube station. It would be light out soon. As he left the sextel behind, he was more mystified than ever. Clearly, it was more than the chance to live on pilfered funds that had drawn Wayne Brummel to Surtsey Mockerkin. It was her daughter. Knowing that, it followed naturally that it was twelve-year-old Katla who The Mock really wanted back.
What business was she involved in, this quiet girl whom her former sochemates had spoken so well of? What work had she been doing for her father? A versatile, talented tecant could do many things.
In this instance, enough to get other people killed.
In spite of all his street and spinner work Cardenas was unable to come up with a single reliable, pursuable lead as to the whereabouts of Surtsey Mockerkin and her daughter. If they were hiding somewhere in the Strip, their identities were not registering on any of the usual trackers. Official inquiries through customary channels had turned up nothing. Mother and daughter had vanished utterly from public ken.